Friday's Fast Five: Week of 9.13

Dealerships Hopeful EVs Will Bring Back That New Car Smell (The Wall Street Journal): Back in 1976, when cars on American roads were just 6.2 years old on average, new car sales accounted for nearly 10% of car registrations. As of 2019, when the average car age had doubled, more consumers were able to hold on to their cars longer or opt for used ones. By then, the share of new vehicle sales had fallen to 6.4% of registrations. Could electric vehicles bring back those glory days of brisk sales and rapid obsolescence?

Why the art of collecting has lost its lustre (Financial Times): From vintage cars to watches and paintings — the amateur connoisseur driven by a passion for their pastime has been replaced by those looking for an investment opportunity

The 401(k) millionaires club hit a new record. What’s their secret? (The Washington Post): While this elite group benefited from surging stock prices, their gains are markers of steady investing over time and having the patience to ride out the rough patches.

Boeing’s No Good, Never-Ending Tailspin Might Take NASA With It (The New York Times): Two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, arrived at the International Space Station on June 6, expecting to stay for just over a week. Now they won’t be heading back to Earth until February. Their ride was on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, now deemed by NASA to be too risky for the return trip because of a host of troublesome technical glitches. Boeing’s engineering woes extend beyond Starliner; they threaten NASA’s bigger goals of going back to the moon through its Artemis program, for which Boeing has become an essential partner.

A double life: The cocaine kingpin who hid as a professional soccer player (The Washington Post): Sebastian Marset arrived at Deportivo Capiata - a hardscrabble professional soccer team - out of nowhere. Over the next two years, the reasons would become clear. Sebastian Marset, it turned out, was among the most important drug traffickers in South America, and one of the key figures behind a surge of cocaine arriving in Western Europe, according to Latin American, U.S., and European investigators. Instead of hiding from authorities, he had used his fortune to purchase and sponsor soccer teams across Latin America and Europe. U.S. and South American investors would learn that he was using those teams to help launder millions in drug proceeds.